PORTUGAL — By a vote of nine to five with one abstention, the ICANN board of directors has voted to reject ICM Registry’s proposal to establish a .xxx sponsored top level domain (sTLD).“ICM’s Application and the Revised Agreement fail to meet, among other things, the Sponsored Community criteria of the RFP specification,” states the ICANN resolution rejecting .xxx, according to the text of the resolution as posted to the ICANN website.
The resolution approved Friday also states that ICANN rejection is based in part on “extensive public comment and from the GAC’s communiqués [indicating] that this agreement raises public policy issues.”
At the Friday meeting of the board where the vote took place, several board members reiterated their concern that approval of the .xxx sTLD would force ICANN into the role of a content oversight body.
“I believe that we have to guard very carefully against ICANN ever becoming a regulator in that sense, and it’s for that reason, and that reason alone, that I would cast my vote against the proposed agreement,” said ICANN board member Steve Goldstein at Friday’s meeting, according to a transcript of the meeting posted on the ICANN website.
This concern is reflected in the text of the ICANN resolution rejecting .xxx, as well. The resolution states in part that “there are credible scenarios that lead to circumstances in which ICANN would be forced to assume an ongoing management and oversight role regarding Internet content, which is inconsistent with its technical mandate.”
ICM president and chief executive told the Associated Press Friday that his company is “extremely disappointed by the board’s action today.” Lawley added that ICM intended to pursue the matter further, and that a lawsuit against ICANN was likely.
The Free Speech Coalition hailed the board’s decision in a press release issued Friday, and noted that while there were a variety of reasons given as basis for the various board members’ votes, “the presence of the Free Speech Coalition was definitely influential,” adding that the “participation of so many webmasters, from the largest to the smallest positively affected the outcome. Due to ICANN’s commitment to bottom-up decision making, the voices of thousands of webmasters voicing opposition was important.”
At the meeting, the most vocal proponent of approving ICM’s proposal for .xxx was board member Susan Crawford, who asserted that the resolution rejecting the proposal was “not only weak but unprincipled.”
“As a board, we cannot speak as elected representatives of the global Internet community because we have not allowed elections for board members,” Crawford said at Friday’s board meeting. “This application does not present any difficult technical questions…. in the absence of technical considerations, the board has no basis for rejecting this application.”
Crawford also implied that political pressure was responsible for the positions held by her peers on the board that opposed the establishment of .xxx and stated that “ICANN should not allow itself to be used as a private lever for government chokepoint content control.”
Board member Alejandro Pisanty took umbrage with Crawford’s assertions, countering that “I have to distance myself energetically…. from the characterization made by Ms. Susan Crawford.”
“Rhetoric aside, the picture she paints is plainly wrong,” Pisanty said. “I do not consider that the board has been swayed by political pressure of any kind. It has acted to the best of its knowledge and capacity within a very vigorous discussion within the board and within the community.”
Board member Raimundo Beca cited the ambiguity surrounding .xxx, specifically the undefined rules that would guide the proposed regulatory body for the sTLD, the International Foundation For Online Responsibility (IFFOR).
Noting that the sponsoring community for .xxx is “self-identified,” Beca asserted that an “an organization which is self-identified is… committed only for what they will decide in the moment.”
“So they are committed to a book of rules, but the problem is that the book of rules is not written yet,” Beca observed.
The ICANN board members and their votes are listed below. A “yes” vote indicates a vote approving the resolution to reject .xxx – i.e. a vote of “yes” is a vote of “no” with respect to establishment of the .xxx sTLD.
Roberto Gaetano: Yes
Steve Goldstein: Yes
Susan Crawford: No
Njeri Rionge: Yes
Raimundo Beca: Yes
Peter Dengate Thrush: No
Rita Rodin: Yes
Vanda Scartezini: Yes
Dave Wodelet: No
Joichi Ito: No
Demi Getschko: Yes
Rajasekhar Ramaraj: No
Alejandro Pisanty: Yes
Paul Twomey: Abstain
Following the vote, ICANN Chairman Dr. Vint Cerf stated that “the proposal is effectively rejected, and it is my understanding that as a consequence of this vote, we will not accept any further proposals on this particular TLD in this particular cycle of sponsored TLD consideration.”
